Performance bonuses and effort: Evidence from fight night awards in mixed martial arts

Artikel

This paper investigates the role of fight night bonus awards on fighter behavior in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and World Extreme Cage (WEC) fighting mixed martial arts (MMA) promotions. Behavior is analyzed using detailed fighter performance statistics, exploiting variation in bonus size across events and over time. Findings suggest that fighters are not meaningfully influenced by bonus levels within the range observed in the sample period and possible explanations are discussed. Fight night bonuses appear to serve as a lottery compensation mechanism to ex post reward performances consistent with an MMA promotion's desires rather than ex ante incentivize such performances. Findings have implications for strategic MMA promoter decisions and contribute more broadly to the personnel economics literature on incentives and compensation.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Journal: International Journal of Financial Studies ; ISSN: 2227-7072 ; Volume: 7 ; Year: 2019 ; Issue: 1 ; Pages: 1-11 ; Basel: MDPI

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Compensation Packages; Payment Methods ; Personnel Economics: Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects ; Sports Economics: Labor Issues
• Subject: bonuses ; effort ; fighter performance ; mixed martial arts (MMA) ; Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) ; World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) ; Zuffa LLC

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Gift, Paul
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): MDPI
• (where): Basel
• (when): 2019

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.3390/ijfs7010013
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/257611
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET